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Festivals

A four-way race between poet, actor, video artist and sound engineer: Edinburgh Festival's Burn reviewed

20 August 2022

9:00 AM

20 August 2022

9:00 AM

Burn

King’s Theatre, and touring until 10 September

Michael Akadiri: No Scrubs

Pleasance Courtyard, until 28 August

Stefania Licari: Medico

Just the Tonic Nucleus, until 28 August

Love, Loss and Chianti

Assembly Rooms, until 28 August

In a new hour-long monologue, Burn, Alan Cumming examines the life and work of Robert Burns. The biographical material is drawn from Burns’s letters, and the poems are read out in snatches. You won’t learn much except that Burns was a poor farmer who later worked as a taxman. To represent his many flings with women, a few high-heeled shoes are dangled on strings above the stage but this looks strangely cheap given that huge sums have been lavished on graphic imagery projected onto a big screen at the rear.

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